In Stage 3 at Northern Stage this week from Tuesday to Friday (various times), Kitchen Zoo presents The Tin Foil Astronaut, a play for young children. Then on Wednesday at 7:45 in Stage 2, Crowded Room presents The Listening Room, the extraordinary story of five victims and offenders who agreed to meet, the true stories of five people whose lives were transformed by three moments of violence. Finally on Thursday and Friday in Stage 1, Northern Stage and Birmingham Repertory Theatre present the UK stage première of Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel A Thousand Splendid Suns.
At Live Theatre from Wednesday to Saturday, Land: Beating the Bounds by Chinonyerem Odimba is the Northumbria University Performing Arts Final Showcase.
At Alphabetti from Tuesday to Friday, Jess Green in association with Discerning Nights present A Self Help Guide to Being in Love with Jeremy Corbyn, a performance poetry show about Labour, Tories, and the division of the left. Then from Wednesday to Friday at 9:05, Imogen Stirling presents #Hypocrisy, a blend of spoken word poetry, dark comedy and original live music. On Saturday at 7:30, Impatient Productions presents John-Luke Roberts with All I Wanna Do Is [FX: GUNSHOTS] with a [FX: GUN RELOADING] and a [FX: CASH REGISTER] and Perform Some Comedy! And finally on Saturday night at 9:00 in the rehearsal room, Open Heart Theatre presents its monthly impro show Let Us Make It Up To You.
On Thursday at 11:00 and 2:00 at Arts Centre Washington, Fidget Theatre presents Bird’s Nest Billy, a show for 3- to 7-year-olds. Billy and Bo are best of brothers. They both have big hair. Bird’s Nest Hair! One day, Bo starts school and Billy has no-one to play with. Suddenly, a magical bird chirps out of his curly, bird’s nest hair. The bird grants him three wishes...
This week is the Takeover at the Customs House in South Shields, programmed by a group of under-25s. Most of the week is taken up by workshops but Friday sees a performance of the play Isolation by the Takeover Young Writer-in-Residence Elijah Young with a cast of eight young actors from the region.
Fertile Ground's Twilight Dances is at Jarrow Hall on Monday.
The Life of Reilly, a play about autism, returns to the Phoenix Theatre in Blyth on Wednesday.
(We Are) Such Stuff presents The Real Inspector Hound on Thursday and Friday at 7:00 in the Henry Travers Studio at The Maltings in Berwick.
The show for 3- to 7-year-olds, Birds Nest Billy, is at the Queen’s Hall in Hexham at 2:00 on Wednesday. Then on Thursday at 7:00 and Friday at 1:00, it’s the turn of puppetry show HONK!, based on Hans Christian Andersen’s story The Ugly Duckling, aimed at age 4+. Finally at 7:30 on Saturday, Oyster Creatives presents Oysters in which, at a party to celebrate Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto’s first performance attended by his friends—loyal Herzogenberg, embittered Clara Schumann and waspish critic Hanslick—the evening unfolds in a series of passionate recriminations and farcical misunderstandings until its moving climax.
Birds Nest Billy comes to The Witham in Barnard Castle at 1:30 on Friday.
The Gramophones brings its aerial theatre girl-power show for 3- to 8-year-olds, Tarzanna, to ARC Stockton on Saturday. Anna doesn’t like mess, she likes things to be in order but her neat world is turned upside down when she is magically transported to the rainforest where she discovers wonders she’s never seen before.
At Middlesbrough Theatre on Thursday at 1:30, LP Creatives presents Treasure Island, featuring a host of stars from the world of children’s television and aimed at ages 3+. On Friday at 7:30, Vienna Festival Ballet presents Giselle and on Saturday, also at 7:30, LipService presents Strangers on a Train Set in which Irene Sparrow is suspected of murder on a train in a tunnel.
One Little Word, a story of friendship, power struggles and the rich world of creative play for age 3+, comes to The Hullabaloo in Darlington on Friday and Saturday at 11:00 and 2:00.
At Saltburn Arts on Friday, Perfect Fools presents one-man Twelfth Night-based I, Malvolio.
On Thursday at the Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, Dyad Productions presents the one-woman play Orlando by Elton Townend Jones based on Virginia Woolf’s novel.
At Harrogate Theatre on Tuesday in the Studio, Nick Cassenbaum and Danny Braverman present My Kind of Michael, the story of the turbulent love affair between entertainer Michael Barrymore and his audience. Also in The Studio on Wednesday, Brawn focuses on who suffers from body dysmorphic disorder, following which, on Thursday and Friday and also in The Studio, Crowded Room presents The Listening Room. Also on Thursday and Friday (various times) in the Main House, Northern Ballet presents Puss in Boots, a child-friendly performance lasting approximately 40 minutes.